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Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Copyright Cops
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the EIPA (the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008), which would create copyright cops. And these cops would take over the RIAA's War on Sharing by filing civil lawsuits and using civil forfeiture laws to take any and all computers engaged in infringement. Worse, they would even seize computers (such as servers or database farms) that house the data of innocent people, and these people would not have any right to get their data back. At best the 'virtual bystanders' who happened to have data on a computer used for infringement could get a protective order saying that no one should go rummaging through their stuff. Perhaps the only good thing in the bill is that they've excluded DMCA circumvention from the list of grounds for seizure. So while the Senators believe this is needed to combat foreign copyright infringement cartels, it's entirely likely that innocent people will be harmed by this law."
I think you're being a little unfair. Considering the amount of bribe-money that's changed hands, they're entitled to a few laws which serve only them and allow them to ride roughshod over the public interest. Geez. Stop being so selfish!
Requiem for the American Dream
Well, that's scary is that, if this passes, the DoJ becomes the enforcement arm for private industry.
How is it at all rational that the DoJ should be pursuing civil matters on behalf of private companies? I mean, are they going to start being the investigative arm and replace Media Sentry and me the ones to be sending subpoenas to universities and then prosecute them? Why does this industry group get their own publicly funded enforcement agency?
This sounds like a really bad turning point for justice in America. Welcome to the distopian future kiddies!
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because, collectively, you all got blinded by greed and put too much faith in the shell game that is economics. In the name of this shell game, you stood by and allowed your government to transform every piece of common wealth into someone elses private property. Now, they own everything and they run everything in an arbitrary fashion, and they're trying to expand this dominion over the entire globe.
You talk about "paying for" these people, what a joke. You have no choices anymore. Look at the housing market. Years of construction, millions of people paying every month for years, and with the stroke of a pen, money is printed, currency is devalued, public wealth is transferred to ensure all those defaulted loans are covered. The white collar crooks get the loan money repaid by the government and more importantly, by the time the money becomes utterly devalued, they'll own the deeds for half the country.
If you want to understand what's going on around you, I'd suggest you start reading up about the Great Depression.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Firstly, any and all your home computers, if you use bittorrent or download music you need to change your habits. Get a USB hard drive and a live CD to run your computer when you are in EVIL PIRATE MODE. if the live CD you use allows the use of truecrypt on the USB drive, I highly recommend it. If it is found you need plausible deniability. I had hacker friends that hid their USB drive inside a belkin UPS under their desk. nobody questions a UPS with a USB cable out of it, Hiding it in plain sight like that will help deter and distract the invading police during their search.
This way you can hide your usb drive with all the evidence and your regular home PC is pristene and clean with no evidence to condemn you.
Works great, leaves no evidence except that which is on your USB drive. You need to start using habits like the Jews had to use in WWII Germany.. take your drive and hide it well when not in use as you will never know when your home will be raided by the Secret IP police. you need to live a double life, and make sure you have good hiding places for your contraband. also be secret, never brag or tell others about your stash as they may be agents of the IP Police... (Bet you money that in a couple of years they will start a "rat on your parents/neighbors/friends" blitz to encourage people to turn in their neighbors.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Nope. You pay because the RIAA's own attempts to enforce copyright law have stalled, largely because armies of geeks have been trying to find ways of ensuring people can violate copyright without actually enough evidence existing to lead to successful trials.
The RIAA itself doesn't have a business model that's relevant to this discussion (any more than the MPAA, AAA, NRA, or any other organization that plays a representative role has), but if you're referring to the music industry's general model of "selling copies of things people want", I'm not really sure how the model is "outdated" or "failed". Because it requires copyright law to enforce it? And? How many businesses do you think survive without any laws at all to ensure people play fair and don't use the fruits of their labors without paying towards the costs? If your employer suddenly started withholding all your paychecks, and you found that your attempts to enforce the law against your employer were fruitless because he or she knew thousands of loopholes, and you found everyone else was in the same boat, do you think it'd be fair for everyone to turn around and tell you your "Employee business model" is "outdated and failed"?
We could have avoided this. There'd be no reason for "copyright cops" if people bought the content they wanted and were prepared to pay for, and steered clear of content they didn't want to pay for. The fact geeks went over the top to create mechanisms to by-pass paying doesn't mean copyright cops are unneeded. It means a bunch of people acted anti-socially, and now we all have to suffer through higher taxes and a greater risk of being caught in the dragnets.
Thanks a lot Ray Beckerman. Thanks a lot Shawn Fanning. So you sowed, so shall we have to reap.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's just another in a long line of laws that America has created where seizing private property is the response.
Before you just, you know, paid a fine, went to jail, and recovered property was returned to the owners when some crime was committed. Now the myriad of crimes have punishments that cover:
I doubt this is the America that people envisioned hundreds of years ago, but what really disturbs me is that I don't think this was the kind of America when I was a kid. It is actually really bothering me these days.
The amount of growing government power to just seize anyone and everything for any amount of time with massive legal hassles to get it or you out of seizure is insane. The concept of government punishment is growing far beyond the crime (share 1000 mp3s with your friends for crap music you would never have bought in the first place) to destroying and shattering peoples live forever.
The laws are being created to circumvent the judicial system. It used to be that the police could be ignored in many cases, because arresting someone really means very little, it was the prosecution that mattered. You might spend a bit of time in jail pre-trial, but prosecution was something you could avoid with the right lawyers.
Realizing this, the laws are being set up now, so the punishment isn't just some "jail time", now you have to spend years recovering even your basic possessions for the laws which now are designed to benefit the agencies itself. Whether prosecuted or not, getting your property back is a very very difficult task.
I just don't see it getting better, but getting worse. Mix laws where people and property can be taken without recourse with the wrong executive body governing the application of those laws and there will be some real problems coming.
But hey, at least I know that when I write some music and sign a song I'll have royalty protection for my music label and I'll get my 5 cents on the dollar.
I'm a satanic clam.
A closer analogy would be seizing all businesses in an office building because one of the businesses was engaged in alleged illegal activity. Your guilty because you rent facilities from the same provider as the target of the government action.
Many don't even know that what they do is breaking the law. Even more would be really surprised to learn that what they have been doing for ages has become illegal suddenly.
Copyright changed a fair lot in the last decade. What used to be legal and was actually common practice for decades is now a big nono. I'm fairly sure if people did realize, the outcry would be quite noticable. Take someone who uses some tool to break copy protection on a movie or CD to make a copy for a friend, just like he did with video and audio tapes for years. With the difference that he didn't have to break any kind of protection, but he doesn't even notice this either. He just knows that this program can copy the DVD while the other one cannot. So he uses the program that can. Legality? I guess he just thinks that the program simply can't do it for some odd reason, or that he can't figure out how to make it work. That one can, so he uses that one. Period.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, can I ask, how many revolutions you've actually been a part of, shieldwolf? Seriously, it's easy to sit back and say "I wouldn't stand for that" but the simple fact is, you can only say that if you actually live somewhere that has it better than we here in the USA have.
I spend a lot of my time volunteering and trying to change those around me through education and I still don't get anywhere. I have said, when the time comes, I will resort to true revolution, but honestly, that time hasn't come. We have a system that is clearly broken, but violence isn't going to fix it unless you kill everyone who has ever had any interest in power. You can't just take out one or two people, you have to take out millions. That's simply not realistic if you expect to be considered a "good guy" at the end of it all. Revolutions have a time and place, but the fact is, in the USA, this is not the time. I can see it being the time in the next generation, possibly two, but not now. Things just aren't that bad, generally speaking. People still have jobs (mostly) and can still feed themselves. Despite what it seems like here on slashdot, people don't fear their government, and don't think there's any reason to fear their government. That may be the fact that we are "fat and lazy" or it may be that there truly is no reason to fear, yet. We still have opportunities to change things. Economics is cyclic, so expecting some big revolution based upon a downturn such as we have right now is just unrealistic. It hasn't truly hurt that many people. Yes it has affected most of us, but it hasn't put enough of us in bread lines to cause true panic, and it's not likely to do so.
As for education, it doesn't require going into debt or being "indoctrinated". Your lack of respect for people who can teach you things speaks volumes, though. Yes you may be smarter than they are, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of respect. Sure there are some professors and "educators" who aren't worthy of respect but those truly aren't the norm.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."